Gaurika Kumar
Depression is one of the most commonly romanticised mental disorders. Movies more often than not trivialize the disorder as something easy to get over, and just a phase synonymous with sadness. These false depictions add to the pre-existing false, negative impressions of depression that exist in society. Art and mass media on one hand have played a big role in the dissemination of these stereotypes and misinformation, but on the other they also hold the power to fix these errors through artistic interpretations and accurate depictions of disorders. One such attempt is made by the film Tzadik.
Tzadik, an Israeli animated short film by director Oriel Berkovits, aims at combating these generalised representations by personifying depression as a black smoke monster. Titled after the Hebrew word for righteous people, the film is set against a dark backdrop and emits an eerie vibe. It shows a boy sitting in a boat in the middle of an ocean with Depression. He is visibly upset, and turns to Depression who offers him an embracing hand. Slowly while sitting on the boat, Depression and the boy fall into a deep slumber only to be awoken by a ball of bright light, symbolising hope and optimism which lands on a tree on an island breathing life into it. Following this, the boy sneaks away in an attempt to reach the island and escape Depression. What follows is a sequence of scenes where Depression attacks the boy, trying to drown him and preventing him from reaching the island. The boy, determined to get to the tree, goes through the smoke of Depression and collapses at the foot of the tree where a beam of light lifts him metaphorically and literally away from depression only to put him back where he started from in the next scene. The concluding scene shows the boy back in the ocean against the dark backdrop looking at Depression, who skoots over in the boat, making space for the boy to come sit. The scene zooms out showing layers after layers of the same scene like a ladder- from the beam of light, back on the boat with Depression.
While the film beautifully portrays sadness, fatigue, and excessive sleeping, it fails to depict other symptoms. The symptoms depicted are those which are often trivialised and romanticised in mass media. Major Depressive Disorder, as defined by fifth edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), is a “common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, what you think and how you act. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home”. The way depression is portrayed in media can, and does influence people’s attitudes to mental illnesses and how to deal with them. The trivialisation of depression leads people to believe it is just synonymous to sadness, completely ignoring the intricacies of biochemistry, genetics, personality and environmental factors.
The symptoms of major depressive disorder, as identified by DSM-5 are “feelings of sadness, loss of interest or pleasure in activities previously enjoyed, change in appetite, trouble sleeping or excessive sleeping, loss of energy, increase in purposeless physical activity, feeling worthless, difficulty in concentration, and persistent thoughts of death and suicide”. The personification of depression in this film adds to the literature on mental health awareness. The common understanding of depression is that it can be easily overcome. The film carefully tackles this belief by showing the process of perceivably getting out of depression, and falling back into it. The film shows how difficult it is to overcome depression by depicting the aggression of the animated Depression monster. For example, when the boy escapes, Depression violently tries to keep the boy submerged underwater in the ocean to dissuade him from seeking the tree. Instances like this are symbolic of how harsh and dysfunctional depression can get. Furthermore, the use of different layers in the film appropriately shows the complexities that surround depression and the challenges of overcoming and falling back into depression. Statistically, half the people who suffer from, and get out of depression, relapse. Relapse happens when a person has just recovered from their depressive episode slides back into it within two months of recovery from the previous bout. Depression relapse is often not talked about in films, and pop-culture, making the focus on it in Tzadik unique.
Therefore, while Tzadik does not portray the intricacies and complexities of depression, it does address one common and important misconception about depression- that it can easily be overcome. Despite not portraying the symptoms accurately, their main aim of debunking the misconception surrounding depression has been fulfilled. Among the flurry of false representations and portrayals of depression in popular media, an artistic representation of depression in the form of an animated short, prioritises the message over the portrayal of the symptoms, thereby being a significant contribution to the understanding of mental disorders.
References:
American Psychological Association. What is Depression?. Retrieved from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression
Oriel Berkovits. (2014). Tzadik. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW1x51zezqE&feature=youtu.be
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